Chapter Six. “They Want You – Down Under”

The Buick was a nice enough car but being pushed the way it was, screeching tyres, screaming engine and smoking brakes was far beyond its design brief. He sawed at the wheel as an oncoming car appeared around the tight bend, missing by inches and testimony to luck not skill on the part of both drivers. He rounded the bend, ignoring the screeching tyres, more concerned about the temperature gauge. The little white needle had been stuck in the red zone for some minutes now, telltale wisps of steam whipped out around the edges of the bonnet.

“Stop you son of a bitch” he gritted out, and when the Buick began to hesitate, then slow, he pumped the accelerator and smacked the steering wheel with his open hands at the same time. “No, no, not you you bitch of a thing… Goddammit.”

He nursed the now stalled vehicle into a lay-by and off the winding mountain road. Steam and smoke poured out from around the bonnet, the front wheel wells, and even through the grill. He smashed his fists into the steering wheel and jerked on the handbrake, hoping the sound of it snapping might alleviate some frustration. No luck there as it held solidly and condensation began to steam up the windscreen. He wrenched open the door, leapt out and slammed it shut, kicking at the dirt. As a final gesture, he slapped the suction mounted flashing strobe from its position on the roof, where he’d managed to plant it only ten minutes earlier. It dangled down and swung lazily on its cord, the red light flashing along the side of the Buick. He placed his head slowly down onto his arms on the roof and rested as he heard the sound of sirens coming up the road behind him.

He went to the side of the road and waved past the first couple of black and whites, then a matching Buick to his own came screeching around the corner, only just managing a screeching halt when the driver saw him. His immediate thought was the cornering composure and speed of even a lowly black and white was far better than their ‘environmentally friendly’ Buicks. Somebody saved a few Government dollars by purchasing compact sedans but just pushed this investigation into a financial loss amounting to a sum that would have bought ten bloody Buicks, he thought scornfully.

“How far?” the driver enquired.

“Too far, unless we can get a chopper over him in the next minute or two. I reckon he’d have disappeared down some little by road and lay low under some cover after that. Damn, damn it to hell, I could have had him, I was right on his tail,” and he slapped the roof of the newly arrived Buick.

“C’mon, we’ll go for a cruise, see if we can catch the local yokels. You never know, one of them might have some brains and radioed ahead for a roadblock or something.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright, hang on.”

He dawdled back to his now slowly steaming Buick, grabbed his bag from the back seat and popped it into the boot. He switched off the strobe and dropped it onto the dash and closed all the windows before finally using the key to activate the central locking. He kicked some more dirt at it, then went back to its twin and jumped into the passenger seat. The driver floored the accelerator that slammed his new passengers’ door closed and his back into the seat. He reached for his seatbelt as the driver activated the siren again.

“Don’t think we need to hurry. Told you, he’s long gone. A regular Houdini this one.”

“How long you been chasing him now?”

“Off and on, about four years. Trouble is that he’s smart, real smart. He only surfaces just before budget time. He knows we won’t have the cash to make a serious effort at catching him. As soon as the budget is approved and the money comes in, he disappears.”

“This is close as you got?”

“Yeah, yeah it is. I saw him, I saw him face to face. I’d dreamed of that day but in my dream I was slapping cuffs on him.”

“Witnesses back there say he drew a gun on you. They said you had every right to shoot. Why didn’t you?”

“He knows, he knows I don’t want to kill him, he knows that. And now I know too, I know he doesn’t want to kill me. He likes me chasing him, that’s his game. It’s a new game now that we’ve been face to face.”

“You, you ever shot anyone, you know, had to shoot someone before?”

He looked at the driver. He saw a young man, maybe mid-twenties, dark suit, black tie, light coloured shirt. A small bulge under his right armpit showed he was wearing a shoulder holster, and was left handed. He’d bet good money the kid also had a back up in an ankle holster. He didn’t look down – didn’t need to. He was good with people. No, that was totally inaccurate. He was good about people, he wasn’t good at all with them.

“Son, even if I had, I wouldn’t go bragging about it to anybody. Killing is not a trophy, it’s a travesty. I don’t expect you to understand that but there is better ways than shooting someone.”

The kid sneered. “Yeah right, that’s good coming from you.”

He glanced again at the kid, okay, so he knew about Waco Texas, that didn’t matter – the whole world knew what a disaster Waco had been.

“Well they probably taught you about that one at the Academy didn’t they son? But I’ll bet they taught you during the lessons about What Not To Do. And I never shot anyone there at Waco either, didn’t have to.”

“Ain’t you Foster Barnes, the biggest baddest dude to come out of the FBI since the gangland days of the thirties? Ain’t you the active Agent with the most kills ever recorded since then? Ain’t you the one that shot all them..?”

“That’s enough kid.”

He used the voice of authority, the one with a little tremor of menace he knew would get through. It worked perfectly, the kids mouth plopped closed as if he’d reached over and whacked him under the chin. The kid even looked surprised at his own impulsive reaction, and was a little sheepish at letting his boyish enthusiasm override professional courtesy.

“Son, let’s try this again and I don’t mind you tellin’ anybody that I told you this. It’s in the official reports – I never shot no one, what you heard was wrong. Ah, told you he’d get away.”

They’d rounded another tight bend and were confronted with the black and whites parked diagonally across the road, one behind and one in front of the carefully parked Camaro in the centre of the road.

“They got him, they got him!” The kid yelled exuberantly as he braked to a halt but Barnes knew better as soon as he saw the scene.

“There’s no damage kid. He’s gone, long gone.”

Foster Barnes followed eventually. He watched from the passenger seat, first as the kid almost sprinted to where the uniforms were peering over the cliff face. He could almost hear the explanations before they told him, rounding the corner to find their quarry had disappeared, but not before leaving his vehicle in a precarious position for traffic coming in both directions. Foster Barnes slid across to the drivers’ seat and shut down the siren. He backed the Bureau Buick up about forty yards so that oncoming traffic would have some warning of the blocked road. The red strobe would earn its keep here for a little while until he could get a black and white to replace it. He strode up to the expectant kid and two uniformed cops. One of the other two was inspecting the Camaro, the other remained in his black and white on the radio.

“He’s gone. They think he jumped over in a hang glider or something.”

Foster nodded. He already knew. He turned at the sound of his name.

“Special Agent Barnes? Special Agent Barnes? You? You’re Foster Barnes?”

“Yes Officer?”

“There’s a patch through, on the radio. DC wants to talk to you. They said you should get into the present and carry one of them there mobile phones. I told “em they don’t work up here never how, even ifs ya do have one.”

He proffered the microphone from his vehicle and Barnes walked over. The cop seemed like he wanted to hang around, so Barnes narrowed his gaze and stared at the officer until he took the obvious hint and returned to his buddies standing with the kid at the cliff edge.

“He’s a mite touchy. He’s THE Foster Barnes huh boy? Don’t look like much to me. Uhuh, here he comes, that was quick.”

They watched as the small man in the dark suit strode toward them from the Police Car. Even allowing for parallax, Barnes appeared to grow as he approached them, though he only had to move some twenty yards. His slight frame and average height no longer seemed so obvious as he strode purposefully toward them. When he stopped, legs slightly apart, arms swinging restlessly at his side like a gunslinger from the old west, he didn’t appear surprised as they gawped up at him.

“Kid, we gotta go now. Looks like I’ve gotta catch a flight to Australia.”

Chapter Seven. “Feeding Time”

It had been almost three days since she’d eaten. Out of sheer habit she was hungry. There had been no hunger pangs, no desire for food but she knew she had to supply herself with sustenance and not depend on this newfound euphoria encompassing her, the heat she felt had been her buddy and her only companion. She knew instinctively it was wrong to rely on something so heavily when she had little or no cognisance of its limits or abilities. She also knew she couldn’t stay in this little caravan forever, completely silent and unmoving lest she be discovered. But mostly she was frightened at what her actions might be should some innocent party stumble across her. She had no desire to hurt anybody. In fact she abhorred violence and the events of the last few days had sorely tested her moral values. The continuing internal battle she fought with herself would be sorely tested again as her days of freedom mounted.

She got up from the floor of the van. Her body clock told her it was around 1a.m., about the same time every night when Tricia would call for her. Without the slightest doubt, she knew Brett would be at Tricias’ cot right at this very moment. Brett was a great Dad and was slowly growing to become a fabulous one. Like most new fathers he had started off slow, if only because he didn’t know what to do. But as the months went by, she realised he had accepted more and more responsibility for his daughter – and for his wife. For his family. He began to take over some of the night time feeding schedules, using the expressed milk and warming it like she’d shown him, and he was much readier to take Tricia with him when he disappeared down the shops to grab a paper or some milk. A mother knows how important those precious few moments of peace are. Very few fathers do.

She desperately wanted to go home and see them both.